Stella Tamul invents the 1st ‘chores fitness’ tracker app
In November 2025, Stella Tamul launched ChoreFit, the Apple Watch app that uses exercise science, MET values, and energy expenditure to track household movement as real fitness and sync it accurately to Apple Health. Stella says she got the idea for ChoreFit because she wanted movement to feel honest, sustainable, and visible at a stage of life where traditional, more intense fitness doesn’t always fit.
The Midst: ChoreFit is the first app that measures chores as fitness. Can you share examples of chores that help build muscle and burn calories?
Stella Tamul: Most of us don’t realize how physical everyday home tasks actually are until we look at them through a fitness lens.
ChoreFit measures chores using the same exercise science used in gyms and research labs, drawing from the Compendium of Physical Activities* to assign real, evidence-based energy costs (Metabolic Equivalent of Tasks, METs) to common household work.
Here are a few familiar examples that quietly work your body more than you think:
• Vacuuming: ~3.5 METs
Steady walking combined with pushing and pulling engages your shoulders, arms, core, and legs. If you vacuum continuously, it starts to feel a lot like a low-impact cardio session.
• Mopping: ~3.5 METS
Repetitive upper-body movement, trunk stabilization, and constant shifting through your legs makes this a surprisingly full-body effort.
• Bathroom cleaning: ~3.5 METs
All that bending, reaching, and pressure work lights up your shoulders, arms, and core while keeping your heart rate elevated.
• Carrying laundry: ~4.0 METs
This one really adds up. Carrying weight, like a weighted vest, while climbing stairs places high demand on glutes, quads, calves, core, and shoulder stabilizers, very similar to weighted stair climbing in a gym.
Individually, these tasks may feel small. But when they’re accumulated over the day or week, they fall squarely within the range of moderate-intensity physical activity recognized by public-health guidelines from organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
That’s the idea behind ChoreFit: not turning life into workouts, just giving real credit to the movement that’s already happening and supporting your cardiovascular health, strength, and daily energy expenditure.
Why and when did you start ChoreFit?
I started ChoreFit because my relationship with exercise changed, and existing fitness apps didn’t reflect how I actually moved.
In 2025, as I was turning 50 with one child already in college and another about to leave, I found myself feeling more anxious and tired, and less connected to the workouts I used to do. I had been a runner and did Pilates and bootcamps, but over time those stopped fitting my energy and my life. I became more home-centered, walking with friends and moving constantly through daily tasks, but none of that felt like it counted.
My Apple Watch kept labeling real effort as “Other,” even when my heart rate was clearly elevated. That disconnect is what pushed me to build something for myself.
What did you do before ChoreFit?
There’s a lot before ChoreFit. I was a high school and college runner and that identity stuck into my late 30s. I ran five Boston Marathons, several half marathons, and ran through both of my pregnancies.
In college I studied Wildlife Management and found myself an internship as a bike patrol ranger on the Cape Cod Canal for the Army Corps of Engineers, with fitness always following me. After college I began working in Environmental Consulting, and specifically I was tasked with conducting site surveys, data collection, land and habitat research on Superfund sites throughout New England. This entailed fieldwork, data crunching, and public outreach.
This experience landed me as one of five watershed scientists the State of Massachusetts hired in the early 2000s. All the while I was running, getting married, becoming a mom, and making sure the waters of the Commonwealth were clean. Fast-forward 20 years and today I’m 51 and retired from my state job. Two years ago I started searching for an app to count my vigorous housework activity to close my fitness rings and here we are.
How’s your entrepreneurial journey going?
Meeting you, Amy, and a few other professionals that are quite supporters has been the best part. One woman who owns a cleaning company reached out to me through a Facebook group and offered to test the app for accuracy over long workout durations — something in all the 900 tests completed, hadn’t been done. She used the app multiple times for over two hours at a clip. Her data was invaluable and she literally made the app better. I would say that has been the best part of this journey: knowing someone out there wants you to succeed. That is so very motivating and unexpected.
The harder parts are realizing you’re running out of runway with your marketing knowledge and budget. This has been challenging for lots of reasons, but let’s just say I’m getting really good at Canva. Self teaching, researching trends, emailing hundreds of influencers, all of that is the ugly bulk of my time lately. But I’m getting pretty crafty so there’s definitely an upside.
You grew up with a dad who loved cleaning and cooking, a rare phenomenon for our generation. Do you think your dad’s penchant for housework impacted how you and your husband split up chores?
I can actually see my dad in his work clothes, sleeves rolled up and he’s cooking away, straightening up his kitchen and “shooting the shit” as he would say with my mom. My dad has been gone now for 15 years and until you asked some pointed questions in our Zoom call, I had never connected the dots on how much of him is inside ChoreFit.
My dad used his time at home after work and on the weekends as his unwinding time. He wasn’t comfortable sitting still or relaxing, so instead he soothed himself with chores. My stay-at- home mom never cooked a meal or cleaned the kitchen for as long as I can remember — she did other wonderful things. All three of us kids today recognize his unwinding time in ourselves; my brother is the self proclaimed laundry guru in his home and my sister uses grocery shopping and cooking as her relaxation. And for me, I built an app so we all get the credit now for this very important movement we do in our homes for whatever reason pulls us.
Because of my father, my view of housework was never gendered or transactional. It was just part of being home, of being present. That’s how my husband and I operate now. We don’t divide chores along fixed lines or keep score. We notice what needs to be done and we do it, often side by side, talking, decompressing, resetting our space together.
How can The Midst community support you?
ChoreFit was built around my midlife shift in energy and how movement fits into everyday life, and that really matters. I’m hoping to receive real user feedback from The Midst Community.
This type of feedback helped me remodel the app for accuracy and relevance. Early on, there wasn’t even a bathroom cleaning option until a close friend pointed out how much real physical effort goes into tackling bathrooms. Knowing what people actually do and want is what helps the app evolve in a meaningful way.
What’s next for you and ChoreFit?
Launch was only two months ago, and I’ve already redirected my energy from building to learning how to market ChoreFit thoughtfully and to the right people. I’m spending more time understanding who it truly resonates with, how to talk about it without hype, and where those conversations naturally belong.
I’ve also been asked about its usefulness for people rehabbing at home or for those who find traditional gyms or social workout settings difficult. That’s helped clarify that ChoreFit isn’t just about chores, but about making movement accessible, private, and credible for people who don’t fit conventional fitness spaces.
What’s the messiest thing about your life right now? And do you want to keep it that way or change it?
Perimenopause 1000%. It’s unpredictable, uncomfortable, and very distracting. On the flip side of this life phase, I no longer have a buffer to over extend myself in any realm. It’s me, my husband, my college kids, and my aging mom that are getting my energy right now. I was the team mom, parent volunteer, I basically raised my hand for everything — that’s stopped. So even though peri is no joy ride, she’s forcing my over-eager hand down and I’m grateful.
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Sources
*Ainsworth BE et al. Compendium of Physical Activities: Classification of Energy Costs of Human Physical Activities. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Stella Tamul is a member of The Midst Founder network of women who are building businesses and redefining the modern midlife experience. Learn more about the community network for women entrepreneurs here.
